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Social skill
It is vital that young children have adult supervision due to their limited
social skills, which can impact their emotional development. Bullying
and peer pressure occurs in young children who are not properly
supervised by adults.
In Behavior Therapy
Shy people find it difficult to do most of these things because their own
level of self appreciation is often so low they cannot project a
favourable image of themselves or take any genuine interest in others.
The focus is always on themselves as they seek approval without really
having the courage to get what they want. Being pre-occupied with
what strangers are going to think, or how they will be treated, shy
people come to dread every interaction.
Soft skills 4
Soft skills is a sociological term relating to a person's "EQ" (Emotional
Intelligence Quotient), the cluster of personality traits, social graces,
communication, language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism
that characterize relationships with other people. Soft skills
complement hard skills (part of a person's IQ), which are the technical
requirements of a job and many other activities.
Mentoring is:
Being a trusted advisor and helper with experience in a particular
field. Actively supporting and guiding someone to develop
knowledge and experience, or to achieve career or personal goals
(for example, a third-year student mentoring a first year student,
helping to adjust to the university experience).
A mentoring relationship may be formal or informal, but must
involve trust, mutual respect, and commitment as both parties work
together to achieve a goal.
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make a choice (for example, gathering and assessing information to
find the best way to perform an experiment).
Taking responsibility for a decision and its outcomes (for example,
choosing a topic for a group presentation from a number of
suggestions).
Delegation is:
Taking responsibility for determining when to ask someone else to
make a decision or carry out a task (for example, figuring out what is
a fair distribution of the workload in a group project, and sharing
responsibility with others). 10
Distributing responsibility and authority in a group by giving
someone else the discretion to make decisions that you have the
authority to make (for example, as the chosen leader of a lab
experiment team, you could assign tasks and decisions to different
group members).
Networking
The ability to actively seek, identify and create effective contacts
with others, and to maintain those contacts for mutual benefit. In
addition to strong Communication Skills and Personal Skills,
Networking uses the Background skills of network building and
motivating others.
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Network building is:
Creating contacts with other people and maintaining those contacts
(for example, meeting someone at a seminar with similar interests,
and swapping email addresses with them).
Acquiring and maintaining information about people who might be
useful contacts for specific purposes (for example, seeking out
people established in an industry you hope to work with one day).
Using a contact in an ethical manner to help each of you meet
specific goals, (for example, collaborating on projects of importance
to both of you).
Teamwork
Involves working with others in a group towards a common goal.
This requires cooperating with others, being responsive to others'
ideas, taking a collaborative approach to learning, and taking a
responsibility for developing and achieving group goals. Teamwork
uses the Background skills of collaboration, mentoring, decision
making and delegation.
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Collaboration is:
Working cooperatively and productively with other team members
to contribute to the outcomes of the team's work (for example,
dividing the workload and sharing the results of your own work with
others in the group, or assisting members of the group who are
having difficulty completing their tasks).
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The Importance of Interpersonal
Skills
A relative once confided rather gloomily that he had been to a party
which was not very enjoyable because hardly anyone spoke to him.
Lacking the necessary interpersonal skills, he clammed up like a
frightened crab, hugged one section of the room and hoped someone
else would make the first move. No one did and he was the loser. Being
frightened of initiating contact themself, he was, of course, ignored.
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Interpersonal skills are essential ingredients of good communication
and social finesse, but they do not come naturally. They are strongly
related to the way we were brought up (whether we were expected to
be seen and not heard), our inner feelings about ourselves, our level of
confidence and degree of interest in others. When such skills are
missing in the home, group or office, it can lead to loneliness,
frustration, non-cooperation and substandard service. Routine skills are
required on three levels: personal, social and occupational. To have
them well-developed means you can communicate verbally, physically
and in writing with far more confidence and assurance.
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